Convert HEIC to JPG, free and on your device

What HEIC is, and why you might need a JPG

HEIC is the format an iPhone saves photos in when the camera is set to High Efficiency, which has been the default since iOS 11. It stores the picture with HEVC compression inside a HEIF container, and the file is roughly half the size of a JPG of similar quality.

The trouble is what opens it. Many Windows PCs need extra extensions from Microsoft before they show a HEIC file, older Android phones and photo editors often refuse it, and plenty of upload forms, print services and websites only take JPG or PNG. A JPG opens everywhere.

How to convert HEIC to JPG

1. Choose your HEIC photos, or drop them on the box. You can add up to 30 at once.
2. Leave the quality at 90%, or move the slider. Higher keeps more detail and makes bigger files.
3. Press Convert. Each photo is decoded and written as a JPG on your device.
4. Check the preview, then download. Each JPG keeps the original name, so IMG_1234.HEIC becomes IMG_1234.jpg. On a phone, Save to Photos puts it straight into your camera roll.

What happens to your photos

They stay on your device. The page downloads a HEIC decoder (libheif, compiled to WebAssembly) once, and that decoder runs inside your browser. Your photos are read, decoded and re-encoded there. No photo is sent to CMeIn or to anyone else, and you can confirm it in your browser's network panel: the only file that arrives is the decoder itself.

Nothing is added to a gallery, whether or not you are signed in to CMeIn. The JPGs exist in your browser until you download them or close the page. If you have accepted analytics cookies, we count anonymous events such as a conversion finishing or failing, with no image, no file name and nothing about you attached.

Quality, orientation and metadata

JPG is a lossy format: every time a picture is saved as JPG some detail is thrown away. At the default 90% the difference is very hard to see. HEIC compresses more efficiently than JPG, so expect the JPG to be larger than the HEIC it came from, often noticeably. Both sizes are shown after converting.

Orientation is kept. An iPhone records how the phone was held as a rotation inside the HEIC file, and the decoder applies it, so the JPG comes out the right way up.

Metadata is not copied. The JPG has no EXIF data: no camera model, no date taken and no GPS location. That is a side effect of writing the JPG in the browser, and it is useful when you are sharing a photo with strangers. If you rely on the date taken for sorting, keep the original HEIC files as well.

The JPG is written without a colour profile. Recent iPhones capture in a wide colour space, so very saturated reds and greens can look slightly less vivid in the JPG than in the original.

Files that hold more than one image

Most HEIC files hold one photo, but the format allows several. When a file holds more than one image, the page tells you how many before converting, and every one of them becomes its own JPG, numbered IMG_1234-1.jpg, IMG_1234-2.jpg and so on, with the main image marked. None is dropped.

A Live Photo is stored as a HEIC still plus a separate video file. Only the still is in the HEIC, so that is what you get. Image sequences, where the frames are stored as a track rather than as separate images, are not converted, and the page says so instead of producing an empty file.

Limits

Each file can be up to 60 MB and each image up to 50 megapixels, which covers every iPhone camera mode. Safari on iPhone and iPad cannot build an image larger than about 16.7 megapixels, so a 48 megapixel photo cannot be converted there at full size. The page tells you, and converts it at a reduced size only if you choose that. On a computer the same photo converts at full size.

Tips

• To have your iPhone take JPGs from now on, go to Settings, Camera, Formats and choose Most Compatible. Photos already taken stay HEIC.
• Sending a photo by email from the Photos app, or using an app's Most Compatible export option, often converts it to JPG for you.
• Keep the HEIC originals. They are smaller, and they still carry the date and location that the JPG does not.
• If you only need to view HEIC files on Windows, Microsoft's HEIF and HEVC extensions let Windows open them without converting.

Common questions